Serious Question: What would the GOP do if it held all three branches of government?
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I guess that this can become a question of one's own philosophy regarding other people. If you look around yourself at society and scowl and think that "people" (the "masses" of which pretty much everyone posting here is part) are stupid fools and you don't respect their ability to have any understanding of what is good for them or anyone...then it makes some sort of sense.
That's the basis of the view that extols a republic over a democracy. Witness the quip of how "majority rule, just means that two wolves and one sheep, vote about what's for dinner". This is of course a stilted and contrived example, but there's a direct path, from the appeal of such a statement, to the belief, that a true democracy with majority-rule, is stupid and dangerous.
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Originally Posted by Sonic_Spork
A lot of people have a deep desire for hierarchical structures and figures of authority to tell them what to do.
Well, yes. And making matters worse, these "figures of authority" generally only have to have the appearance of competence, strength, sagacity and so on. They don't have to be wise or strong. They only need to create the veneer or caricature of wisdom and strength. This holds, I think, across the spectrum of our preferences on economic issues (taxation and redistribution) or even on the cultural wedge issues (guns, abortion, school prayer,...).
To some, the ideal republic is one where The Strong gather to choose from amongst themselves, The Very Strongest... who would become Leader... like Germanic tribes 2000 years ago, where the village leaders gather in a ceremony to elect a king, to lead them into battle against the Romans.
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Originally Posted by Sonic_Spork
If folks in some rural county want to have a pastoral, God Fearing land of white clapboard churches and no abortions and everyone's got a gun for shooting critters, no legal weed and no gay weddings, I may not agree with them but as long as they keep their mandates out of the business of the city dwellers who have opposite positions on ALL of those things then at least citizens will eventually be able to choose where to put down their roots and live their lives.
With such level of division between town and country, can there even be a unified country? Phrased alternatively, if my town does things a certain way, and the outlying rural regions do them so radically differently, then what binds us a coherent people? What is our common-cause, over which we should have one national army, one currency, one central bank, one foreign policy and so on?
And the my point below, you need to consider an asymmetry. The clapboard-church group, generally doesn't just say, that those boors and savages in their city, are welcome to their wanton immorality, so long as we the righteous ones, are left to ourselves. Instead they feel a messianic mission to cleanse and to enlightened. To localize their mission to just their local community would be a dereliction of duty.
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Originally Posted by Sonic_Spork
It's wild to me though that some will complain about "mob rule" but then figure it makes sense for a small minority of the citizens of the country to "rule" over the rest. Who is treading upon whom?
You're overlooking the cute little undercurrent, that if Smith and Jones disagree, that's because the party of Jones are a mob of fools, whose vile influence must be suppressed, while that of Smith, are an enlightened minority, who deserve to be heard.
Or in other words, it's not that majority-rule is crude and minority-rights must be upheld, but that OUR minority is decent and righteous, while the other guys - the majority - can go [expletive] themselves.
And so I find it hard to understand the mindset, honestly, of wanting to be led, and of really trusting someone else to know better. I don't think that even the President of the US, no matter who they are, is "better" than me, superior or more worthy to make my decisions for me. They are an equal person with a different job to do, that's all.
I could never have been in the military!
You obviously do not understand what its like to be in the U.S. Military. There are many reasons why people join, but the desire to be led or the not caring is definitely not one of them. A good percentage of people join the military because they want to make a difference... they want to be a part of something greater than themselves.
Most people in the military do not view the President as the reason why they fight or serve, they see the president in the position who was chosen by the masses to make those decisions on their behalf.
One of the big differences in our military from many other militaries in the world is that we have a very diverse rank structure. You don't just have some senior leaders at the top, and everyone else is a pawn. There is accountability and overarching direction is made at the top, but decisions are made at the lower ranks at numerous points. The Air Force is a bit muddled... a general might make a decision, and then the liutenant colonels will all duke it out with power point presentations, ultimately with the colonel making the final decision in the vein of the general. With the NAVY... you obviously have Captains, but the Master Chiefs make a LOT of the decisions, and they're enlisted. In the Army, the highest ranking person in the room makes the decision, and Army people are given a lot of leverage and leeway.
You take Russia's military for example, if anyone makes any decisions anywhere that aren't totally approved by senior leadership, they are totally punished for it... and for that reason, their military is completely worthless. In our military, lower-ranking officers are engaged technically as much as our enlisted are.
That's the basis of the view that extols a republic over a democracy. Witness the quip of how "majority rule, just means that two wolves and one sheep, vote about what's for dinner". This is of course a stilted and contrived example, but there's a direct path, from the appeal of such a statement, to the belief, that a true democracy with majority-rule, is stupid and dangerous.
No, I know, I just utterly and profoundly disagree with it.
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Well, yes. And making matters worse, these "figures of authority" generally only have to have the appearance of competence, strength, sagacity and so on. They don't have to be wise or strong. They only need to create the veneer or caricature of wisdom and strength. This holds, I think, across the spectrum of our preferences on economic issues (taxation and redistribution) or even on the cultural wedge issues (guns, abortion, school prayer,...).
To some, the ideal republic is one where The Strong gather to choose from amongst themselves, The Very Strongest... who would become Leader... like Germanic tribes 2000 years ago, where the village leaders gather in a ceremony to elect a king, to lead them into battle against the Romans.
With such level of division between town and country, can there even be a unified country? Phrased alternatively, if my town does things a certain way, and the outlying rural regions do them so radically differently, then what binds us a coherent people? What is our common-cause, over which we should have one national army, one currency, one central bank, one foreign policy and so on?
Well, this is the area in which America is an unusual animal but it's one of the reasons that I love this country. I do not believe that cultural homogeneity is required or even desirable. I know the history, I understand where we have come from hundreds of years ago, but I do not believe that this is what we as a species will inevitably revert to...the fear and need to destroy those people who are unlike ourselves. We're not bound to that.
Do people actually think that one day, a specific ideology or group is going to "win" in America to the point of either changing all minds or destroying any who dissent? In a country of this size? Our coherence as a nation, if anything, is in being able to respectfully disagree, and to cooperate when necessary not only in tolerance of diversity, but in acceptance of it.
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And the my point below, you need to consider an asymmetry. The clapboard-church group, generally doesn't just say, that those boors and savages in their city, are welcome to their wanton immorality, so long as we the righteous ones, are left to ourselves. Instead they feel a messianic mission to cleanse and to enlightened. To localize their mission to just their local community would be a dereliction of duty.
They are welcome to try, to spread their message and share their ideas. But no one is required to accept them. If the majority in the city decide that they agree then they can start petitions to get things on ballots, and they can vote and see if most of those who live there agree that a law should change, that is part of whatever ideology on offer.
Seriously are we going to be thinking beings, or hairless chimpanzees who cannot find any way to resolve conflict but beating one another over the head in a rage?
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You're overlooking the cute little undercurrent, that if Smith and Jones disagree, that's because the party of Jones are a mob of fools, whose vile influence must be suppressed, while that of Smith, are an enlightened minority, who deserve to be heard.
Or in other words, it's not that majority-rule is crude and minority-rights must be upheld, but that OUR minority is decent and righteous, while the other guys - the majority - can go [expletive] themselves.
No but really, if I bend this around so that a group I align with and defend is this ~minority~...say, gays and gay marriage, k? I remember the way that gay people were seen in the 80s and 90s by mainstream society. I remember the AIDS crisis and various moral panics and so forth. It took a concerted effort, and time, to change the minds of the majority to the point where we accept that yeah...y'know...whether we are exactly comfortable thinking about it or not, we are not violently hostile towards gay people nor want them to suffer excessively for this... Like, the majority came around. It was necessary to humanize it so that those who had never met a gay person (that they knew of) saw them as PEOPLE and not this abstract scary concept... But we've come quite a ways on that!
So a system like ours, if retaining some of the republic-elements but maybe just a little heavier on the democratic-elements, does also require freedom of speech and expression and the sharing of ideas, so that at least even an oppressed minority may in time appeal to the sensibilities of the majority and make a case for their needs.
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Originally Posted by Atari2600
You obviously do not understand what its like to be in the U.S. Military.
...
Actually I do, yeah. I was never IN the military, but I was the child and grandchild of veterans and was married to a man while he was enlisted in the Army for six years and I lived in Colorado Springs for a decade and have countless close friends and associates who are serving or who have in the past.
I assure that I do know a thing or two about the culture.
And one of the things that struck me is that the man I originally got together with and had kids with became a completely different man when he was in the uniform. A certain level of at least performative deference is REQUIRED and enforced, by necessity. And if nothing else, they respect the rank even if not always the man wearing it. I wasn't talking specifically about the President, I was talking about believing that someone is above you, your superior, and has an actual right to demand obedience. You can't even possibly function in the military without some acceptance of the concept of authority.
That same man, who was so different in the military, was absolutely changed by the time he got out, and has since gone full Q-anon, and after terrorizing his family and abusing our kids and threating us with guns, I eventually had to leave him.
So yeah. Something about the spectrum of embracing authoritarian ideologies...but to a really far extreme there.
If someone tells me what to do, on the other hand, I consider it and I need to see the sense in it and agree with it in some way if I'm going to do it. I will always reserve the right to ask questions or argue if I don't think that the directive is one I want to accept. "Because I told you so" has NEVER been an acceptable statement from anyone to me, on its face.
I also don't believe in God, as in the sense of a superior Being. Long story short...I don't take orders.
Cut taxes - it's the one thing that you can count on Republicans actually doing.
Cut regulations - the other one thing that you can count on Republicans actually doing.
Investigate their political opposition. Remember the Benghazi Investigations? Or Hillary Clinton's Emails investigations? Or the more recent Durham Investigations? Like those, but on steroids.
Reimplement America First isolationism. They'll do this both in their immigration policy and their foreign policy.
Reverse Obergell v. Hodges. Elimination of anything LGBQ+. In fact, reverse any state decisions that they don't agree with. But then, that's SCOTUS - the GOP doesn't need the other two branches for this.
Actually.....
they'll TALK about cutting taxes.
they'll TALK about cutting regulations....
they'll TALK a lot and do NOTHING after the investigations....
they'll TALK about what you call "isolationism". BTW, I don't know if you really know what neo-conservatism is, but it AINT isolationism. Those days are over with.
they'll TALK about reversing a bunch of stuff.....
and then AFTER they get in office, they'll do nothing but cowtow to the Democrats and help push their progressive agenda forward for globalism.
You gotta get a grip on how these guys operate.
The GOP has one BOTH the biggest presidential landslides in history in just my lifetime. And over the past 50 years what have they done really? Nothing but capitulate.
Thank you. I am with the poster to whom you are replying--as well as the primary mod for this forum for whom I sing backup here--that we want to keep those types of sweeping generalizations out of this forum. i someone has the urge to declare that "All Democrats want to abort full-term babies" (actually seen with my own eyes on P&OC) or "All Republicans are white supremacists", please remove yourself to the Politics forum.
As I said, that was a mistake on my part. I was referring specifically to a comment made on Post #92 in this thread.
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I did a quick search, however, on whether there was any truth to one group or another wanting the so-called civics test for voting. I found an old USA Today article about putting five basic questions to a group, which included the results by partisanship:
So maybe it's the "right" who should be pushing for this, eh?
There are some on the right who are pushing it, specifically to block Trump voters from the process.
Anti-Trump right winger Daniel Harsanyi wrote an op-ed in the WaPo during the 2016 Primaries entitled "We must weed out ignorant Americans from the electorate". Imagine having Jeb! imposed on the country by fiat. https://vdare.com/posts/david-harsan...be-hardest-hit
Actually I do, yeah. I was never IN the military, but I was the child and grandchild of veterans and was married to a man while he was enlisted in the Army for six years and I lived in Colorado Springs for a decade and have countless close friends and associates who are serving or who have in the past.
I assure that I do know a thing or two about the culture.
And one of the things that struck me is that the man I originally got together with and had kids with became a completely different man when he was in the uniform. A certain level of at least performative deference is REQUIRED and enforced, by necessity. And if nothing else, they respect the rank even if not always the man wearing it. I wasn't talking specifically about the President, I was talking about believing that someone is above you, your superior, and has an actual right to demand obedience. You can't even possibly function in the military without some acceptance of the concept of authority.
That same man, who was so different in the military, was absolutely changed by the time he got out, and has since gone full Q-anon, and after terrorizing his family and abusing our kids and threating us with guns, I eventually had to leave him.
So yeah. Something about the spectrum of embracing authoritarian ideologies...but to a really far extreme there.
If someone tells me what to do, on the other hand, I consider it and I need to see the sense in it and agree with it in some way if I'm going to do it. I will always reserve the right to ask questions or argue if I don't think that the directive is one I want to accept. "Because I told you so" has NEVER been an acceptable statement from anyone to me, on its face.
I also don't believe in God, as in the sense of a superior Being. Long story short...I don't take orders.
I forgot who you were, but you and I have both had deep discussions about this stuff. So I know your story, and I know we disagree respectfully on politics. Your ex-husband aside, there is a profound difference in how most in the military view their service. You know my background, we've talked about it. I've deployed too... and yes, it does change you. Every day for an entire month I cried at work after we pulled out of Afghanistan. I'm huge... 6'3", 225 pounds, a big guy... never lost a fight. I don't cry easily. I probably need to see someone, but I live with it.
People join the military for a number of reasons, but for many people, it's the sense of purpose... as JFK put it, "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country." It has nothing to do with God.
Our nation does not exist without a military, because other countries with "leaders" will always want to expand their power... and we're at the top of the list to conquer. Even in the United States, it's a constant challenge we face. We don't agree with every decision our leaders make, but I don't want to get into politics, because that's not beneficial to anyone or this conversation.
You have a bad experience with your husband, but this is not emblematic of the military as a whole. There are losers in every walk of life, but people in the military are generally good, and they are called to do things... some very good, some unspeakable. Both scenarios can be emotionally devastating to be put in those situations.
I still harbor a lot of resentment, but at the end of the day, people are fallible, and what are we, but a country made of people. Again, I don't agree with all decisions that are made by any president, but when I was having a really difficult time dealing with Afghanistan, I reached out to a friend who was a Vietnam veteran. He was helping me through dealing with some of this and what he said really stuck with me...
"I have long held the belief that the inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness applies to all, everywhere, and not just those living in the United States and the West. It is incumbent upon us to help if we can, what are we if we do not try? If not us, then who?"
I forgot who you were, but you and I have both had deep discussions about this stuff. So I know your story, and I know we disagree respectfully on politics. Your ex-husband aside, there is a profound difference in how most in the military view their service. You know my background, we've talked about it. I've deployed too... and yes, it does change you. Every day for an entire month I cried at work after we pulled out of Afghanistan. I'm huge... 6'3", 225 pounds, a big guy... never lost a fight. I don't cry easily. I probably need to see someone, but I live with it.
People join the military for a number of reasons, but for many people, it's the sense of purpose... as JFK put it, "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country." It has nothing to do with God.
Our nation does not exist without a military, because other countries with "leaders" will always want to expand their power... and we're at the top of the list to conquer. Even in the United States, it's a constant challenge we face. We don't agree with every decision our leaders make, but I don't want to get into politics, because that's not beneficial to anyone or this conversation.
You have a bad experience with your husband, but this is not emblematic of the military as a whole. There are losers in every walk of life, but people in the military are generally good, and they are called to do things... some very good, some unspeakable. Both scenarios can be emotionally devastating to be put in those situations.
I still harbor a lot of resentment, but at the end of the day, people are fallible, and what are we, but a country made of people. Again, I don't agree with all decisions that are made by any president, but when I was having a really difficult time dealing with Afghanistan, I reached out to a friend who was a Vietnam veteran. He was helping me through dealing with some of this and what he said really stuck with me...
"I have long held the belief that the inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness applies to all, everywhere, and not just those living in the United States and the West. It is incumbent upon us to help if we can, what are we if we do not try? If not us, then who?"
Like you are really zooming in on my mention of the military and dragging my sentiments off into the weeds, to a place that had nothing to do with what I was saying.
I was not disparaging the military, or saying that people in the military all believe in God or respect the President, or crave authoritarianism even.
I was only saying that you've got to be able to take orders from people who outrank you, in order to function in the military. They quite understandably do not have time for every enlisted Private to stand there and think about whether it makes sense to scrape the moss off the pavement of the motor pool (an actual task assigned to guys at Fort Carson back when my ex was in)...and to respectfully refuse to follow the orders given.
I'm not arguing with this. It is necessary, not only to have a strong military but also to have these men trained to follow chain of command. It would be chaos otherwise.
But is it fair to say that not everyone would thrive in the military? I mean, that is only one of several reasons that I really do not have what it takes, and never considered enlisting. I don't think it's for everyone.
Some people, I think, are more comfortable with the very CONCEPT of existing in some kind of a ranked hierarchy. Some have more basic belief in a pecking order of one kind or another.
To point to other similar notions (having nothing to do with the military, because that's not really what I was talking about)...
Some people think that celebrities are better than they are, as though fame makes one a magical super-being.
Some people crave structure, some grew up believing in the power of, say, a strong father figure, as an authority to be respected (with or without fear.)
Some grow up with a need for faith in a kind of God or higher power, something to guide them.
There are lots of ways that this thing can manifest. And I think that finding some kind of comfort with it is more common than uncommon. I think that I'm rather the strange one for not trusting anyone, really, in that way or investing anything in a concept of hierarchy or authority.
But some take it to a very extreme place, where they think that it would be very comforting indeed if we had One Strong Man as leader, and One State Religion, and One National Culture & Identity...that all "good" citizens could take great pride in and stand behind. Some think that diversity is more weakness than strength, we've seen threads about it. I don't agree. But all the same, when one has much freedom, that does in fact include the freedom to choose who and what one believes...and the freedom, even to make bad choices as some Americans certainly do, the freedom to experience consequences and the freedom to personally fail, sometimes.
But rigid authoritarian structures do not mean more freedom. They mean less. To circle back, a soldier gives up a great deal of personal freedom, as you know, voluntarily for a time to serve a greater good (or to provide for his family or better his own future or whatever reason he signed up.) But at least in MY living memory (I'm only 43) it's at least been voluntary, we have not had to use the draft.
I argue on behalf of Democracy in this thread, because I believe that to the extent possible, we should have freedoms, and a voice. Government by the consent of the governed. That is what this is about, not my opinions specifically about the military.
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